Mark Kerr is back inside the Octagon … well, sorta.
The celebrated heavyweight bruiser is now a playable fighter in the UFC 5 video game, thanks to the “Smashing Machine” hype from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Kerr, now 56, only spent two nights under the UFC banner, competing twice on July 27 and twice on Oct. 17 back in 1997.
After four fights with UFC, Kerr went on to compete in Pride Fighting Championship.
Kerr (15-11, 1 NC) retired in 2009 after losing five straight.
“I felt like there was some real connective tissue with Mark’s life and my own,” Johnson told Sports Illustrated. “Sure, today. But in the ’90s there were a lot of crossings in our worlds. There were a lot of pro wrestlers who then joined Pride. A lot of MMA guys came to wrestling. And I was always in awe of Mark. As the years went by, we both suffered a lot of losses. We lost a lot of friends to addiction and to suicide — there was a rash in both of our businesses in those late ’90s, early 2000s.”
“When I watched the [Smashing Machine] documentary years ago, I had just started acting,” Johnson continued. “I felt then, ‘God, I would love to play Mark Kerr.‘ Cut to 2019. I [buy] the project. I lock the rights down. We connect with Mark. I speak to Mark, whom I had known 20 years earlier. And it all started to come together.”
For a sneak peek at The Smashing Machine movie click here.
